It is the anniversary of a heartrending week. One year ago, this week, I was about to carry out a deed that, unconsciously, comes to my mind whenever I remember my sin –my hand, armed, as I raise it against myself. I see myself lying on my bed, face turned to the wall…now and then I would regain consciousness, coming out of my stupor, a sort of paralysis, in which I felt detached from my existence.

With time they have begun to disperse, and yet you still couldn’t say there are only a few people in Ferrara who remember Dr. Fadigati: Athos Fadigati, the ear, nose and throat specialist whose office and house were on via Gorgadello, a short distance from piazza delle Erbe; and he ended up so badly, poor man, so tragically, he, who as a young man, when he first moved to our city from his native Venice, seemed destined to have the most normal life, the most serene, and, therefore, the most enviable career.

The winter of ’44 in Milan was one of the mildest winters in a quarter of a century; hardly any fog, no snow, no rain after November, and not a cloud for months; and sun all day long. Day came and the sun came; day went and the sun went. The street book-seller in Porta Venezia said: “This is the mildest winter we’ve had in a quarter of a century. We haven’t had a winter as mild as this since 1908.”

One of the few things, or maybe I should say the only thing I knew for sure was this: my name was Mattia Pascal. And I took advantage of it. Every time one of my friends or acquaintances was mad enough to come to me for help or advice, I would shrug, narrow my eyes and say:

-My name is Mattia Pascal.

-Thank you, dear. I know.

-Isn’t that something?

To be truthful, it didn’t seem like anything to me either. But I was oblivious, then, to what not knowing even that could mean, no longer being able to answer, that is, like I had before, when needed: